Daily Archives: June 14, 2021

Caves under the sea

My Life as a Lens / unsplash.com

Greetings friends – I am just bobbing my head up from a deep dive – my 1st foray as a member of the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Thruout the 4 day retreat we worked with a lecture series by Rudolf Steiner called simply – ‘Anthroposophy, An Introduction’, GA 234, given a year before he died, from January – February of 1924. These 9 lectures are a kind of recapitulation, a deepening of concepts he gave 21 years earlier in his seminal books ‘Theosophy’, & ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’.

Steiner asks us to face life’s riddles, as he takes us from ordinary knowing to the science of initiation. On this path of the soul to the spiritual we peel away yet another layer in the exploration of the various sheaths of the human being. Are we willing to transcend the chains of necessity binding us to the destructive forces inherent in the laws of nature? We can ask things like: “How does a moral impulse come to move bone by muscle?”

Ram Daleti

When we seek the moral element within us, we meet ourselves in a fresh way – thru imaginative thinking – the human being as small ocean, our fluid etheric self – taking us back to the womb –  & at birth, “time becomes space“, for the etheric body is a “time-organism”, just as the physical body is a “space-organism”.  

To Balance the rounding down centripetal forces we live into inspired feeling. The inner music of our breath streaming in as living beings, & out again to be read by our higher self, allows us to look directly into the spiritual world, where “space must become time for us“.

Steiner describes the human being as a “comet stretching its tail far back into the past”. And so it is that inspiration can reveal our past incarnations when we empty our consciousness – “suggest away” all the pictures we have built up, leaving that strengthened space  open. Music (or a scent) can unlock experiences, perhaps memories from another life. “Our moral impulses act indirectly, through the ego of our last incarnation.”

Artists' responses to the Holocaust | Imperial War Museums
Ilene Wentworth Merkel

Intuition activating the will of the true “I”, “is attained by making the power of love a cognitive force” – to be able to go out of ourselves, selflessly, with warmth of soul, & live into another human being…

we are connected. - jaymin - Paintings & Prints, People & Figures,  Portraits, Male - ArtPal
Jeffery Centoff

I hope that little nugget of a synopsis wets your appetite to read this series for yourself. It is truly food for the soul.

Frederic Leighton

On the 2nd day of the retreat, (11 June 2021) we took a break in the afternoon. I went to do my midday Circle meditation & fell asleep. Tomorrow I will share what Steiner had to say in the above lectures about the sleeping human being, but for now here is the dream I had during my afternoon nod:

The Illustrated Jules Verne: Voyage au centre de la Terre | Literature art,  Earth illustration, Jules verne

I am in a kind-of Jules Vern landscape – caves under the sea. I am part of a community that lives there. We are all dressed like the time of the French Revolution: with big powered-wigs & fancy clothes; everyone is wearing overstated makeup. A woman – one of the leaders has a presentment that an important ‘book’ was to appear. We travel into another chamber of the cave which is vast & airy, & there is a large group pf people that have Ethiopian / Egyptian features, very tall and thin with coal black skin. Their faces are all painted in bright yellow chalk, which gives them a striking countenance. They are bare chested, with leather skirts & black bands around their left arms. The woman wear large top hats & their breasts are painted bright yellow like their faces. They are all smoking pipes that emit pure clean oxygen which enlivens the chamber. They stare out as if in a deep meditative state. The air vibrates & moves like music. I stand there certain that they have ‘the book’. I am filled with a deep feeling of gratitude & anticipation.

It’s been a long weekend & I am still digesting. I feel like I have taken a turn somehow…

As my friend Mary Louise always says: Onward!

~hag

Angela Foster

Summer Practice & Research Group – 6 Essential Exercises & Eightfold Path

Beginning Saturday June 12 and ending July 24.

9:00 – 9:15 am PT / 10 am MT / 11 am CT / noon ET / 5 pm UTC / 6 pm CET

Daily 15-minute Zoom for 42 days (6 weeks)

You are invited to join with a group of friends as we explore Rudolf Steiner’s 6 Essential Exercises alongside the Eightfold / Daily Exercise Path.

This is a practice group AND a research group. We are experimenting with weaving our attention with weekly rhythm of the 6BE and the daily rhythm of Eightfold Path/ Daily Exercises. You are encouraged to bring a journal to make notes and keep track of your progress.

Zoom Link 

Free

William Wolff

‘Preparing the Way’ an experiential St. John’s-Tide Festival

23 June 2021, Doors open at 5:30 pm with a Potluck -Program from  7-8:30 pm

In-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4248 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, 60618

The program is evolving – There is a possibility that world-renowned eurythmist Jan Ranck from the Jerusalem Academy of Eurythmy will lead us in group eurythmy (TBA)

Other activities may include: 

Art – Mary Spalding

Spacial Dynamics – Deborah Rogers

Singing – Elizabeth Kelly

Group discussion – Hazel Archer

If Jan Ranck is leading – $20 pre-pay online or $30 at the door (no one turned away for lack of funds)

For more info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer

Sea Cooke

St. John the Baptist and Uriel the Archangel of Summer –

An Experiential Festival with Geoff Norris, Elizabeth Carlson, Lisa Dalton, Hazel Archer

Sunday 27 June 2021 on Zoom: Noon – 1:30 pm PT / 1 – 2:30 pm MT / 2 pm – 3:30 pm CT / 3 – 4:30 pm ET / 8 – 9:30 pm London Time / 9 – 10:30 pm CET

Metanoia –  Can you hear the voice of conscience? – Make straight the path, for at the fullness of Summer, the light is so bright that it leaves no room for the shadow, a time to remember what St. John said “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Musicial Performance by Lucien Dante Lazar

Speech – Geoffrey Norris

Eurythmy- Elizabeth Carlson

Living into St. John’s-Tide – Lisa Dalton

Leading Thoughts – Hazel Archer

Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: St. John’s
Time: Jun 27, 2021 02:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=TkMwcGVVdk5GTVJmVzVJS2s5YVFtQT09

Meeting ID: 705 293 1041
Passcode: Uriel


Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF

For more info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Hazel@reverseritual.com